


Bother Figure

by Write_like_an_American



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arthritis, Canonical Child Abuse, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fix-It, Gen, M/M, Minor Relationships, Mostly Gen, Multi, Nebula learns how to care about people, Past Child Abuse, Team Bonding, Team as Family, That's it that's the plot, Yondu Adopts Everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 17:05:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14698587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Write_like_an_American/pseuds/Write_like_an_American
Summary: Her nails scored the steel, knuckles swollen. But she'd made it, and she had scrip in her pocket, and there were only five more steps to the counter, and...Udonta?What the hell was Udonta doing here?Thanos was Nebula's only father figure. But what if he wasn't?In which Nebula bonds with Yondu over self-medication and meets a very cute bug along the way.





	Bother Figure

**Author's Note:**

> **This was inspired by a great chat I had ages back, with... Grison, I believe? I learnt that childhood over-exertion can lead to early onset arthritis, and thus this fic was born.**

_Shkrp. Shkrrp. Shkrrrp._

The blade slid over the whetstone, back, forth, back again.

_Shkrp. Shkrrrp._

Tonight was clear and bright. Above Knowhere's smog-laced atmosphere, the nebula she’d been named after shone brighter than usual, stars peeping through fretted clouds.

_Shkrrp. Shkrrrp._

She wouldn’t be able to see those clouds at all if not for her robotic eye. At least not in all their vibrancy: hot gases melding and intermingling in a psychedelic, false-color mural.

_Shkrrp._

It was, some sentimental fool might murmur, quite the view.

_Shkrp._

It wasn’t worth it.

The whetstone stank of lubricant and shaved steel. She moved the knife in mechanical sweeps, the gear in her shoulder clicking a decibel below her species’ audible range.

Nebula heard it anyway. Wherever Thanos located a deficiency, his children suffered his improvements. Nebula’s cochlear implants registered the noise, and she logged it in her long-term memory to deal with after she’d finished her business in the celestial’s putrefying head.

You could sharpen your sword as much as you pleased – it didn’t matter without oiled arms to wield it.

Her bone joints required less maintenance, but still did their utmost to cripple her. The repetitive whetting motion burned through her chest, her hip and her right shoulder, tethered to its socket with ligaments rather than lynchpins.

No doubt about it – despite the crystalline clarity of the night. A storm was coming.

Nebula shut her eyes. Her jaw worked through a single champ.

Gamora must suffer as she did, wherever she may be. They all had, back on Titan Rock. Joints aching, overstressed from phsyical hardship endured too often and too young. But no doubt Gamora – Thanos’s golden girl, the model killer, deadliest woman in the galaxy – rose above the agony.

Nebula didn't have that luxury. Not strong enough; never _strong_ enough.

Just like Father said.

The automated docking procedure guided her to roost in Knowhere’s hollow eye. She eased from her chair, slow as a woman three times her age.

A clumsy push shunted her knife into her mechanical arm. She located the latch on the third try, and cudgelled the order _retract_ through the burn in her joints, which rose with the rad pressure as the storm closed in.

Her barometer gave her an hour before the first winds hit. It was high time she went shopping.

 

**Author's Note:**

> **This chapter is just a little taster to gauge interest! It'll be added to if that interest is there. Comments and/or kudos = undying love!**


End file.
